Trump’s union-friendly labor secretary choice sparks GOP anxiety

Several Republican senators have expressed concern about President-elect Donald Trump’s union-friendly pick to run the Labor Department, setting up a potentially contentious confirmation bid for Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-Oregon).

“She’s one of them. She’s pro-union,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama) said in an interview on Tuesday. He said his office has received a lot of calls from businesses objecting to her selection. “She checks all the boxes for the left.”

Chavez-DeRemer’s selection is a nod toward the growing populist wing of the GOP, which helped peel away working-class voters from the Democratic Party in November. But her selection is also fueling tension among more traditional Republicans with long-standing ties to business trade groups.

A handful of Democratic senators said they liked the moderate Republican who has embraced pro-union legislation, meaning she may secure a nomination with Democratic support.

Chavez-DeRemer, 56, lost her re-election bid in November. She has served on bipartisan congressional caucuses. But she is best known on Capitol Hill for being one of only three GOP lawmakers who co-sponsored legislation that would have significantly expanded labor rights, including measures that increased penalties for employer labor law violations, expanded union eligibility and eliminated right-to-work laws that allow workers to opt out of union dues.

Business groups railed against the legislation – the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, known as the PRO Act. The Senate didn’t take it up on the floor.

“I was an opponent of the Pro Act,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) said of Chavez-DeRemer’s selection on Tuesday. “The right-to-work laws we instituted in Kentucky have been good for our economy … So I’m not a big fan of that position.”

The heightened scrutiny could develop into opposition from GOP lawmakers, although some Republicans said they are waiting to weigh in.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana), who next year will chair the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee overseeing the labor secretary nomination, was among the first to voice concern last month. “I need to know more, because she’s pro-union and I’m from a right-to-work state,” Cassidy told the Post on Tuesday.

“I was a union member when I was in high school and college,” said Sen. Rick Scott (R-Florida) said in an interview. “But I haven’t met with her yet.”

Even as some trade groups congratulated Chavez-DeRemer, they have also made clear their opposition to a pro-union agenda.

“IFA looks forward to ensuring the job-killing PRO Act and Biden-era joint employer standard have no place in the incoming administration,” said Matt Haller, chief executive of the International Franchise Association, a lobbying group for fast food owners and operators, in a statement.

Yet in Chavez-DeRemer, Trump’s transition team signaled they felt confident they had selected a candidate who could straddle the divide between employers and labor.

“Lori’s strong support from both the Business and Labor communities will ensure that the Labor Department can unite Americans of all backgrounds behind our Agenda for unprecedented National Success,” Trump said in a statement.

Business leaders had favored Andrew Puzder, former CEO of CKE Restaurants, parent company of Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s, who was also under consideration for the job, according to labor policymakers.

Chavez-DeRemer, however, benefited from a lobbying campaign from the Teamsters union. The union did not endorse for president for the first time in decades. And its president addressed the Republican National Convention, sending shock waves through the labor movement and among Democrats.

Some Senate Democrats have signaled they are open to Chavez-DeRemer being nominated. On Tuesday, Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pennsylvania) told The Post, “She seems to be an incredibly strong pro-labor choice.”

Fetterman cautioned that Trump’s pick could drive more union members away from the Democratic Party, calling her “a strategic and a smart play to co-opt even more of those out of our traditional base.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) also chimed in, writing in a post on the social media platform X that: “It’s a big deal that she’s one of the few Republicans who has endorsed the PRO Act.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), one of organized labor’s biggest champions in the Senate, declined to comment.

If confirmed, Chavez-DeRemer would be responsible for overseeing the federal enforcement of minimum wage and overtime laws, child labor regulations and workplace health and safety rules.

It’s not clear how much Chavez-DeRemer’s pro-union legislation support would carry over in a Trump administration, said Janice R. Fine, a professor and director of the Workplace Justice Lab at Rutgers University.

“What we don’t know and what I don’t think we can know is what her attitude will be about really important basic labor laws – like minimum wage, overtime, health and safety,” Fine said.

While unions see a potential ally in Chavez-DeRemer, they also expressed concern whether her views would swing right as a member of the Trump administration.

“Lori Chavez-DeRemer has built a pro-labor record in Congress,” the AFL-CIO, the country’s largest labor federation, said in a statement. “But Donald Trump is the President-elect of the United States – not Rep. Chavez-DeRemer – and it remains to be seen what she will be permitted to do as Secretary of Labor in an administration with a dramatically anti-worker agenda.”

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Abha Bhattarai contributed to this report.